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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27868341">since when do you dance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/michellejones_stacy/pseuds/michellejones_stacy'>michellejones_stacy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dancing, Fluff, Harley and Peter are both Awkward Potatoes, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Pining, put them together and you get a disaster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:28:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,465</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27868341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/michellejones_stacy/pseuds/michellejones_stacy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The big takeaway here was that Peter couldn’t dance.</p><p>But Harley could.</p><p>or</p><p>Peter starts teaching himself how to dance. It does not go how he expected it to.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Harley Keener/Peter Parker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>since when do you dance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>posted this on tumblr and then decided it would be better to post it here cause it got longer than I wanted it to be. not in a good headspace rn, so I'm sorry if it's bad.</p><p>feedback is appreciated :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><div class="">
  <p>If there was one thing Peter couldn’t, for the life of him, do, it was dance. He couldn’t dance for shit, simple as that.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It didn’t make any sense, when he thought about it. He was Spider-Man, for crying out loud, he was agile, he swung through the city high enough off the ground that a fall could kill him—or seriously injure him, at the very least—and yet he couldn’t do something as simple as dance.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He knew how to do it in theory. Move the hips, move the feet, move the hands, and all that, but he just couldn’t <em>do it</em>. Whenever he tried to dance, it was like all gracefulness and agility and ability to move without falling flat on his face disappeared. Flew away like a piece of paper outside on a windy day.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He remembered May (sort of) teaching him, for homecoming in sophomore year. But that was more along the lines of <em>moving</em> than dancing, and he didn’t even get to try any of the “moves” May showed him. Because he, you know, almost died and everything.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Anyway, the big takeaway here was that Peter couldn’t dance. At all.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But Harley could.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And Harley was <em>good</em>. Like, <em>really</em> good. Peter had seen him dance a few times, when Harley had obviously thought no one was looking. Behind the school, where no one ever went, after school had let out was mostly when it happened, but Peter had also caught Harley dancing when they went to visit Tony, and there was one time he’d been about to burst into what he thought was an empty classroom—super senses, man, they were not as cool as they sounded—and Harley was in there, earbuds in and dancing his heart out.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It just - Harley had so much control over his body with all the things he did. Peter fidgeted constantly, always in motion, but Harley was the opposite. Harley could sit still for hours on end and not move at all—besides the occasional finger twitch—and then get up and walk across the room without falling. And, okay, maybe that sounded cooler in Peter’s head, but he didn’t know how to describe it. He’d seen Harley dance, and it was honestly amazing.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And maybe—but no one had any proof—Peter wanted to be able to dance so he could connect with Harley.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He and Harley talked, and were sort of friends, but. Peter felt something every time he was around Harley, something that twisted in the spot between his lungs and his stomach, and it was like Harley didn’t feel it.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It was like Harley and Peter were on two different planes of existence, and Peter thought that if he could find something that connected them, then they would finally exist on the same level. And dancing, as far as Peter could tell, was that something,</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The big problem was, as previously stated, Peter couldn’t dance for shit. Plus, there was also the fact that he was entirely too socially—and romantically—challenged to come up with any other way for him and Harley to interact in the way he wanted them to, so. Learning to dance was his only option.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Except dancing was <em>hard</em>. Like, kudos to everyone who did it professionally and made a career out of it, because they were seriously talented. And kudos to everyone who decided to take it up as a hobby, because Peter had been trying to learn to dance for weeks now, and he didn’t think he was getting any better.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He’d mostly been using books and YouTube videos, because it wasn’t like he could afford to take classes. And it wasn’t like he was going to ask May or anybody else, because they would most likely figure out his motives in a heartbeat, and Peter was not looking to be mortified like that.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>At this point, Peter should just give up. It wasn’t like he would ever be able to dance, anyway, and it was even less likely that Harley would like him even <em>if</em> he did end up being good at dancing.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>But Peter wasn’t a giving up type of person. So it looked like he was going to continue to spend his time learning how to dance. For a guy. Because that was what his life had fallen to. Peter knew the whole <em>don’t change yourself for anyone else</em>, but he technically wasn’t changing himself, he was just - adding a new ability to his skill set.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Regardless of what he was or was not doing, Peter was going to remain firm and go through with this decision. Besides, it wasn’t all about Harley, not anymore.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Learning how to dance had taken a firm hold in Peter’s mind, and it wasn’t easy for his mind to let go of things.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>At least, that was what he told himself as he panted against a wall of the empty classroom he was in.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Dancing was exhausting and exhilarating at the same time, and Peter both loved and hated it. It was hard work, but something about it made his muscles ache in a good way.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>It was kind of like being Spider-Man, but without all the fighting. And the getting fought. And the jumping onto buildings. And the sometimes falling off of buildings.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Basically, dancing was like being Spider-Man but way safer.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Peter pushed off from the wall, wiping the sweat off his forehead and cursing as his hip bumped against a desk in the dark. Dancing in a classroom in the dark probably wasn’t the best idea Peter had ever had, but he needed to practice, and he refused to do it in his room or where anyone else could potentially walk in on him.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And, yeah, someone could potentially walk in on him here, but, as long as it wasn’t Harley, Peter was prepared for that. He’d been dancing in this classroom for weeks, even if it was only for the last fifteen minutes of his thirty-minute lunch period, so he knew that the teacher was never in the classroom during his lunch and he would have most of the fifteen-minute period to practice.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>(He was honestly surprised that neither MJ nor Ned had followed him to see where he was disappearing to, because he knew that they didn’t believe him when he told them he wanted to get to his next class earlier, or when he told them that a teacher wanted to speak with him, or when he told them any number of excuses he’d crafted in his mind.)</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>One of the main reasons he’d chosen this classroom in particular was because it, for some reason, had a full-length mirror—more of a plastic surface than anything else, but it was reflective, which was what mattered—on the back of the closet door, so Peter could (kind of) see himself and the things he was doing.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>The things he was doing completely wrong, but that wasn’t important.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Okay, maybe it was a little important. It was just that every move Peter tried to do looked wrong and different and<em> not right.</em></p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Dancing was the first hobby he'd picked up that didn’t have anything to do with using his brain, and he wanted to be good at it, even though he wasn’t—at all—and probably never would be.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Sighing, and rubbing his hip a little, Peter picked up his phone and scrolled through his music to find a song that he was trying to learn a dance to. He’d found someone dancing to it on YouTube, and it looked really cool—and also simple enough that he could follow it, which was even better—and he wanted to try it.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Safe to say it wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped it would.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Right as Peter was about to start the song, the classroom door opened. Peter held his phone to his chest and opened his mouth to start explaining to whoever had walked in what, exactly, he was doing in an empty classroom, by himself, in the dark, but stopped once he saw who it was.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Harley—<em>his</em> Harley—well, not his, but the Harley that he knew—closed the door and pressed his forehead against its surface. Peter heard the soft, but somehow still heavy, sigh that Harley let out, and saw the way that Harley’s entire body sagged. Whether it was a sigh of relief or not, Peter didn’t know.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He said Harley’s name. And by that, he meant he <em>tried</em> to say his name. His mouth opened and everything, but all that came out was a soft wheeze, one that he was sure didn’t reach Harley’s ears.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>As much as he didn’t want to—because of course today would finally be the day Harley walked in, a day when Peter had just started getting confident that he would never be found out—Peter had to let Harley know that someone else was in here. It was the right thing to do. What if Harley had come in here to cry? It was doubtful, but you never knew the motives of other people until they either told you or found out for themselves, and Peter really did not want to find out for himself if Harley had come in here to cry.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Harley?” Peter croaked, wincing at the way Harley whipped around. “Hey.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Harley looked defensive and almost a little accusatory but then his expression changed into one of understanding before it went blank. “Peter? What are you doing in here?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“That,” Peter started, looking around, suddenly feeling very self-conscious in his tank top—why had he decided that dancing in a tank top was a good idea—and sweatpants, “is a very good question, that has a very good answer to it.” Harley just stared. “I, uh, I was… dancing?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>At that, Harley’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second before they went back to their normal size. “Since when do you dance?” he asked, and Peter winced at the tone of the question. Harley winced, too, and lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. “Sorry. I’m just, a little stressed.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Peter nodded. Why, he didn’t know, because a nod wasn’t even close to a proper reaction to Harley’s statement. The curses of being a painfully awkward individual in practically every situation ever. “It’s fine.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“A couple of weeks,” Peter offered up awkwardly after a few seconds of them silently staring at each other. “I’ve been coming to dance in here for a couple of weeks.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Cool.” Harley adjusted his backpack, holding it tighter. “Are you… good?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Peter gave a laugh that <em>might</em> have sounded just a tiny bit bitter. A <em>tiny</em> bit. “No.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And it wasn’t like he was lying, or being self-deprecating, because he really was not any good at dancing. His movements were too jerky, and it always looked really awkward.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Ah.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“I’ve seen you dance,” Peter blurted out, like an idiot. Panicking at the way Harley drew himself up and seemed to retreat into himself, he continued. “You’re really good at it. Like, <em>really</em> good. And… you’re also kind of the reason I started. Dancing, I mean. Though I don’t know what else I would mean, because we’re talking about that. Dancing.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Peter pressed his lips together to cut off the impending word vomit that was on the verge of following. What he’d said had already been weird enough—he didn’t want to make it worse.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Oh.” Harley blinked, his expression not changing, but Peter could see the way Harley’s shoulders dropped slightly. “I– Thanks. I guess.” He hovered, the entire room having an extremely awkward air, and Peter resisted the urge to open his mouth and talk some more because that would make everything at least ten times more awkward. And he was pretty sure neither of them wanted that. “Well,” Harley said eventually, nodding to himself. “I’m gonna… go.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Peter nodded back, a little too fast to be casual. “Sure. You - you do that.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Why was this happening?</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Harley nodded—so much nodding was happening it was a wonder no heads had rolled—paused, then nodded again and turned around. He opened the door and walked out, and Peter let out what he hoped was an inaudible sigh of relief.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Peter waited until the door was closed to let out a scream through gritted teeth and lifted a hand to rake it through his hair. He was going to have to rob a bank, change his name, and move to the Middle East without telling anybody. It was the only thing he could do, and he was willing to do it if that was what it took to never face this type of embarrassment again.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Idiot,”  Peter hissed to himself, rubbing a hand down his face.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He planned on continuing with his verbal berating, but he never got the chance to do so because the classroom door was opening again.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Harley’s head popped into the room, his face red and his eyes looking everywhere but Peter.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Look, you’re probably going to think I’m weird for this, but I lied. I knew you danced. I’ve seen you come in here before, to dance, and you’re better than you think you are. You just gotta loosen up a little. Have some fun with it.” Harley hesitated, looking like he was debating something with himself before he decided to go through with it. “I could help you, if you wanted. Give you a few tips. After school. We could go to my place.” Peter didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t want to, because he most definitely wanted to, but because he was shocked. Surprised. Flabbergasted. It was a weird time for him, okay, because Harley had just invited him to his <em>place</em> to <em>dance</em>. “Okay then,” Harley said, giving a little nod. “Just thought I’d ask.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He shut the door, and Peter blinked in confusion.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>What had just happened?</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Harley had asked him if he wanted some tips, and Peter wanted them, so…</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Oh.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>
    <em>Oh.</em>
  </p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Peter frantically grabbed his backpack and his t-shirt, trying to pull on both at the same time as he ran to the door. He burst out of the classroom to see Harley walking away.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“Wait!” he called. Harley stopped walking and turned around. “I’d– That sounds good. Really good. Better than good, even, that sounds <em>great</em>, I just, forgot. To say it back there.”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>Peter waited, heart pounding and chest heaving, sure he looked like a mess with his hair more than likely all over the place and him sweating buckets.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>And then Harley grinned, sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Awesome. This afternoon work?”</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>“This afternoon,” Peter responded, smiling back.</p>
</div><div class="">
  <p>He was so glad he couldn’t dance.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>are there any Dirty Dancing Parkner AU's out there, cause I really want to read one but can't seem to find any (and writing it would be well beyond my skill level).</p><p>come find me on <a href="https://michellejones-stacy.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>! you can send me prompts or requests, or we could just be friends &lt;33</p></blockquote></div></div>
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